Chelsea Lamb has spent the last eight years honing her tech skills and is the resident tech specialist at Business Pop. Her goal is to demystify some of the technical aspects of business ownership.
Perhaps you’re interested in expanding your marketing strategy with new digital initiatives, or you want to help your clients improve their video marketing. Today, more and more businesses are incorporating video into their marketing strategies – but even tech-savvy entrepreneurs can feel intimidated by the complexity of video production and editing.
These guidelines are designed to spur your thinking about improving the results from video marketing as well as show how to select the right platforms for your videos, and distribute customer surveys for useful insights.
Photo via Unsplash
Choose the Right Marketing Platforms
Even if you’re familiar with all the major marketing channels, you might be wondering which platforms to include in your video marketing strategy. After all, not every platform is ideal for sharing videos, and spreading yourself thin across too many platforms can become overwhelming.
It’s a good idea to begin by creating videos for your audience on Facebook and Instagram, as many people use these platforms specifically to watch videos. Additionally, you can include a marketing video on your Google business listing. This visual representation is a great way to enhance your professional reputation.
Tackle the Production Process
Nothing improves a video like taking the time to plan it in the first place.
Before hiring a video production team or setting up a camera and filming a video, determine the goals of your video marketing. Think through what you want to accomplish. Often, you’ll discover that different team members have widely differing opinions on what needs to be done. It is far easier to resolve these before production starts than after a video is mostly complete.
Next, take time to script the narration or dialogue for your video. This helps nail down specifically what you need to shoot.
While you can produce and record your own video – and there are a ton of resources on the web to help you do that – a better option is to hire someone to create it for you. Watch what they do. Ask questions. Often an outside pair of eyes can see interesting and marketable things about your business that you overlook simply because you are so deeply enmeshed in it.
Also, shooting a high-quality video takes good gear, skill and patience. Farming out this task is often a better use of company resources than trying to do it yourself.
Involve Your In-House Design Team
Just because you are shooting video does not mean you should ignore all your existing marketing design and branding. Team your internal design team with the video production team to make sure that what they create reinforces and extends the visual branding you have already created.
Measure Crucial KPIs
How will you know whether or not a particular video was successful? You need to measure the right key performance indicators (KPI). Aniview states that you need to assess KPIs like impressions, click-through rates, view-through rates, and conversion rates. These metrics will help you determine if your video reached enough people, if they actually watched it in its entirety, and whether it prompted them to make a purchase.
It takes a lot of work to make a video go viral. Don’t set overly high expectations if this is your first effort at video.
Glean Insights From Surveys
Measuring KPIs will help you assess the success of a particular video – but if these metrics reveal that one of your marketing videos has underperformed, how can you figure out which aspects to improve in your next video? Customer surveys can help you glean the insights you need to enhance your strategy going forward.
To encourage more customers to participate in your surveys, you may want to offer incentives. Typically, incentivizing customers leads to higher survey response rates and improved response quality. If you need ideas for incentives, consider providing gift cards, prepaid cards, or cash rewards, or making charitable donations in your customers’ names with this free solution.
You can deepen your connection with your audience through video marketing. By investing in marketing videos, you’ll be able to leave a lasting impression of your brand. With these tips, you’ll be ready to identify the best platforms for publishing your videos, experiment with 3D design tools, and incentivize your customers to complete surveys for feedback.
Summary
If there’s one takeaway from this, it’s: Think about what you want to accomplish, then measure whether you accomplished it.
Once you have a formula that works, repeat it. Video is no longer one-and-done. It’s a continuously evolved stream of messages between you and your customers.
